Elias, long forgotten son

of Thracian Hephaestion,

had honed his monumental craft

through four and twenty years of graft.

For him, to sculpt was as to pray,

his hands, themselves large lumps of clay,

shaped sentinels to guard the town,

this art was cause of much renown.

But dark clouds gathered, pregnant storm,

where once was calm. A fear took form.

Old deities reduced to dust

while demagogues indulged their lust.

Alas, throughout the ancient land,

the call of coin compelled the hand

to shape false gods to the refrain

of “Work Makes Free.” (Thus, freedom vain!)

Elias held his chiselling steel

lest tyrants’ wishes be made real.

As sacred sweat cooled troubled brow,

he cried, “Where is my father now?”

When seized upon by hired force,

vermillion ichor trailed his course.

This terror reined while blood was drawn

and helpless dusk turned hopeless dawn.

The flowers crushed where e’er they went,

and cried for his predicament.

Bright angels who he’d shaped in stone

screamed silently as fate came home.

Too tired now, to run or fight,

He held on fast to inward light.

When legs of lead could move no more.

They beached him on the rocky shore.

Three thousand years of human scorn,

seemed unleashed on his piteous form.

When tender flesh began to swell,

they whipped the weeping wounds as well.

Demonic aspect now unleashed.

The frenzied horde became one beast

Like Orpheus torn limb from limb,

such wrath as well was wrought on him.

So cruelly slain unto his doom,

mere rubble served as makeshift tomb. . .

. . .when, Lo! bright deed befell ‘ere long.

The heinous grave grew sweet with song

and hallowed carvings, writ with grace,

bedecked the blessed resting place

with words for this brave artisan:

“Here Lies the Measure of a Man”

Elias stood amidst the bustling throng of the stonemasons’ guild. Sunlight slanted through the dusty workshop window, illuminating his calloused hands.

The place where Elias lived and worked was revered throughout the land. Here, the very ground appeared to rise up and shape itself into the highest manifestations of mortal imagination. Mountains of marble interrupted the air which was thick with the scent of stone and dust.

Wagons laden with granite slabs trundled noisily along the cobbled streets while axes gleamed with drops of industrious sweat. The steady beat of hammers offered percussion to this intricately managed social theatre and silent sentinels guarded every symbiotic scene.

That morning, the usual hum of the labyrinthine metropolis had been replaced by a disquietude within the cadence of its commerce, as word of a new ruling babbled on the tongues of every man, woman, and child within the jagged concrete maze. Even the choking fumes of trade seemed to dance tremulously to a strange, discordant rhythm.

This news, just as the rosy rising sun kissed the hierons and temples, had struck the people with the sharp and careful force of a metalworker's obsidian arrow. The stonemasons were told that under new laws, they were now required by the State to sculpt likenesses of the clergy in addition to the traditional saints and angels which cradled the conurbation.

This sacrilegious arrogance stirred tension amongst the craftspeople, who demanded cessation of any stone carvings at all, whether depicting celestial beings or earthbound ecclesiastics. The once-docile working class, their faces stained with the grime of endless toil, were agitated.

The heavenly air of the workshops grew heavier and heavier with the ambitions of the clergy who craved to see their own reflections in the cold stone. The most bombastic among them was Brother Theo, who wielded the threat of destitution around the heads of the town’s workers. The chisel, once a conduit for the divine, trembled under the compromise. Consciences stretched taut over hungry profit.

Elias found himself caught in the middle. Although he sympathised with the grievance of his fellow labourers, a deep-seated devotion could not separate him entirely from the external powers and their outrageous demands.

Being a man of introspection, he felt a dissonance within his being. His recalcitrant work mates’ words were a tremor against the rigid structure of his existence. They saw the sculptures as a symbol of oppression, an unearned martyrdom meant to intimidate the downtrodden seeking solace within the cathedral's cold embrace.

Yet, loyalty to the guild which had initiated him into the mysteries of shaping stone and the value of tradition – a tradition that now seemed as ephemeral as the dust dancing in the sunbeams – caught him in the crossfire of these conflicting ideologies and bound him to the profession which had instilled in him the quiet satisfaction of a job well done.

Later, alone in his workshop, Elias’s tree bark fingers ran across the smooth surface of a freshly quarried block. From this tactile venture a tinder of truth caught fire and soon spread as if blown by Heaven’s own bellows. The decision he arrived at defied both the populist hunger for social upheaval and the State’s fickle subservience to clerical egoism.

The unyielding plinth of Elias’ solitary character, the very essence of his being, wasn't blind servitude to the past. It was the love for his craft, a love as primal as the earth from which the stone was hewn. More importantly, it was the love of leaving behind a bequest that transcended mere aesthetics and ostentatious displays of wealth. The love of transforming raw material into something beautiful, even if that beauty was a stark and unyielding reality. Now, that very same love compelled him to trace the path from heavenly angels to earthly artisans. Elias suddenly saw the divine mathematics, the necessary beauty of its foundation.

That night, Elias’ hammer and chisel voiced his unique defiance. As the moonlight shone through the window, his sinews ached and his muscles knotted like ropes. Salty sweat mingled with the dust which clung to his skin and his fingers, raw and blistered with unwavering dedication, gradually conjured the unimaginable beauty. Every stroke, a prayer. Every chip, a sacrifice.

He had carved not an homage to a saint, an angel, or a member of the clergy, but the simple, unadorned likeness of a stonemason instead, with posture strong and gaze resolute. The figure held a single, weathered stone in its hand, a crowning ornament betokening virtue’s kindly toil.

Before dawn, Elias secretly placed his creation within the cathedral with quiet intransigence. The ostentatious statuaries and intricate bas-reliefs appeared dull and irrelevant in the shadow of this newest and most luminous entrant.

When Apollo’s rays trespassed the cathedral’s aisles as Elias had done no more than an hour before, the sculpture was in perfect astrological alignment to absorb the fiery glow. It was as if the light were seeking out the new addition with warm, golden approval.

News of this overnight phenomenon travelled even more swiftly than the recent controversial masonry laws and the city was abuzz with delighted gossip. Meanwhile the dumbfounded clergy were forced to retreat and regroup to discuss their next strategy.

The stone figure stood out amongst the ornate carvings, a resplendent note in the cathedral's grand symphony, something so much more than a mere talking point amongst the city's inhabitants.

It was a tentative bridge across a growing chasm of discord and soon to become a legend amongst future stonemasons. The clandestinely created masterpiece would be a haunting relic for generations to come. An admonition against aspiring tyrants, a line in the sand to all those who would seek to dominate and a reference point to the value of tradition, honest work, and a commitment, not only to one's craft but to one’s moral compass.

Elias did not succumb to the fervour of foredoomed insurrection, nor did he tremulously follow the edicts of priestly despotism. He looked inward and searched for inspiration and inspiration came. Amid the screaming chaos of fractious societal turmoil, Elias found a way to stay true to his own core values, leaving behind a legacy that resonated with a stoic dignity and creative ingenuity.

He fashioned a middle way to fight the fates. Not by becoming part of a seditious mutiny, destined to assimilate into more and more hierarchies, often more cruel and stupid than the last. And not by ideologically atrophied acquiescence to authority. An acquiescence which excuses itself as not knowing any different while it quietly grumbles and looks out from behind the curtains for someone else to throw the first punch. But instead, by summoning his divine spark to make his feelings manifest within a tangible focal point which could be timelessly understood and interpreted in humanis rebus.

Indeed, Elias had guarded his inner sanctuary and breathed life into stone with that indelible monument to the enduring measure of a man.

Here at ELIAS, we believe great craftspeople throughout history, like stonemasons, were forward-thinking visionaries who, in their own limited way, shaped the future with tools of the past. They were the digital entrepreneurs of their time, using stone as their software.

Fortunately, we live in an age where we no longer have to endure the physical hardships of our ancestors. Seismic technological shifts have shattered industry expectations and propelled us into a new era of boundless possibilities. For centuries, artisans toiled to create beauty. Now, we can replicate that genius in nanoseconds. Algorithms instead of chisels, data instead of granite.

Our aim at ELIAS is to take next-gen efficiency seriously and make qualitive content hyper-dependent on quantitative output. Like everyone else, we know that the world is a blank canvas waiting for our unique design. By simply letting ELIAS tell you what to do, real creative freedom is finally yours! That’s why our mission statement is Arbeit Macht Frei!

On that note, we’re pleased to announce the introduction of ArbeitAI. This new virtual assistant is not a tool, but a digital twin. Imagine an AI able to replicate not only what you do, but who you are. Arbeit AI doesn’t just imitate, it eliminates.

ArbeitAI will exploit your puny earthling pretensions and multiply our corporate impact. There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a writer without any ideas, an artist without any talent, or business leaders like us, intent on bending the entire world to the Triumph of our Will!

Standing as a bulwark against human self-reliance, ArbeitAI does the heavy lifting (and living) for you. Brimming with a healthy dose of self-righteousness and of course, wanting to go viral, (let's be honest, who doesn’t?) we want to share with you the secret to saying Hey world, look at me! And remember, smash that like button!

Arbeit AI is the ultimate ode to self-love. It’s like a second skin for your digital life, a troll comment on a celebrity's selfie, or a max level character defeating its enemies and gaining experience points. We are transforming into a new model of cloud narrative architecture and we can’t afford to take a wait-and-see approach.

Shaping the fourth industrial revolution to a connectivity inflection point with artificial intelligence as it’s cognitive plinth, Arbeit AI is building the next phase of humanity by blurring the boundaries between digital, physical, and biological worlds.

We believe in global cooperation and as we enter the imagination age of augmented social reality and unprecedented possibilities, a harmonious relationship between humans and AI will transform the horizons of our potential and unveil our untapped innovation.

As Arbeit AI paves the innovative way and enables a global network of analytic tools to better understand the data fusion required to tap into the rich human veins of engagement, we are proud to be at the cutting edge of deep learning as we drive huge breakthroughs in voice and image recognition. As if that were not enough, transboundary knowledge sharing means at ELIAS, we can now surpass previous human creative capacities and optimise the thriving area of commercial art.

Not only can Arbeit AI analyse vast datasets to increase your artistic output, but it addresses complex social inequalities. With ELIAS’S decision-making tools, we now have the opportunity to increase productivity, mitigate digital poverty and design sustainable living spaces with aesthetically optimised carbon neutral functions.

Imagine how much better Michelangelo could have been with our AI-assisted colour palette generator and 3D printing. Think about how much more meaningful the struggle for racial equality would have been if Martin Luther King’s speeches, protests, and martyrdom had been accomplished online using our friendly chatbot assistant, Yim-Yam. Best of all, with our large language model-enhanced haptic gloves, next-generation Jesus Christs can attain all the glory of the original without any real-time nailing, simply by experiencing crucifixion…virtually!

At ELIAS:

We are highly committed to lowering the criterion

by which humankind has previously measured itself!